Module 4- IT Interview

             

According to TechTerms.com, “IT” is an acronym for Information Technology, and can describe anything that is related to computer technology. This includes networking, hardware, software, Internet use, or people that may work in these areas. Jobs within IT can be computer programming, network administration, computer engineering, Web development, or tech support.[1] The term “IT” found its’ way into everyday conversations once home computers became a common household appliance. IT support can be found online, over the phone, at the local shop in town, and even at work. IT can assist with home computer issues or be a part of national security.

One career path in the United States Navy is Information Technology. Under this career field, recruits are trained to provide technical support, write programs, analyze communication signals, provide training, and operate global satellite telecommunications systems.[2] Information Systems Technician First Class Nicolas Nannenga has worked within this career field for the past 14 years.

Nannenga started his military career as a Window NT administrator, which is an operating system developed by Microsoft. His duties included software/hardware configuration management, domain name server management, and Cisco router management. He feels that his biggest accomplishment during this time of his career was the fact that he developed a training suite for new administrators. This was a significant accomplishment as lower ranking servicemen are not asked to do these kinds of tasks.

A year later, Nannenga helped build a Windows 2003 domain from scratch that allowed users to migrate from the old Windows NT domain into an Active Directory. He maintained this network for two and half years. In a team effort, Nannenga and his colleagues migrated 400Gb of data from two servers with 320GB of hard disk space to a new server that had 1.5Tb of storage. He was able to do this with no loss of data, and only 8 hours of downtime for the user. He states that this was a major accomplishment during this tour of duty.

During his next tour, Nannenga received training and worked as a Linux administrator for three years. Along with a team of six coworkers, Nannenga maintained 250+ servers. He was unable to go into detail about this time in the service, but was able to discuss that he built a webpage and database designed to handle 10 million transactions a day and display the data in graph format, with trend analysis. This was built to help with system troubleshooting.

IS1 Nannenga is now in charge of system security on an aircraft carrier. He spends most of his day monitoring internet traffic and looking for illegal software downloads and pornography amongst sailors on the carrier. He also ensures security patches and antivirus updates are installed. Nannenga’s largest career accomplishment came last May, when IT on the carrier underwent a Department of Defense inspection. Two other ships that were investigated scored “high” by receiving 27% and 28% passing rate. Nannenga’s carrier received a 69% passing rate. http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=61633

Information Technology is an umbrella term that encompasses many systems dealing with computers. While most computer users with use IT support mainly for downloading new software on a home computer or for fixing simple errors at work, many people will forget that IT is part of our nation’s security.




[1] TechTerms. Accessed January 25, 2012. http://www.techterms.com/definition/it


[2] Information Technology. Accessed January 24, 2012. http://www.navy.com/careers/information-and-technology/information-technology.html